British Aerospace in the context of Farnborough, Hampshire

Hatfield is a town and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, in the borough of Welwyn Hatfield. It had a population of 29,616 in 2001, 39,201 at the 2011 census, and 41,265 at the 2021 census. The settlement is of Saxon origin. Hatfield House, home of the Marquess of Salisbury, forms the nucleus of the old town. From the 1930s when de Havilland opened a factory, until the 1990s when British Aerospace closed it, aircraft design and manufacture employed more people there than any other industry. Hatfield was one of the post-war New Towns built around London and has much modernist architecture from the period. The University of Hertfordshire is based there.

Hatfield lies 20 miles (30 kilometres) north of London beside the A1(M) motorway and has direct trains to London King's Cross railway station, London St Pancras railway station, Finsbury Park and Moorgate. There has been a strong increase in commuters who work in London moving into the area.

The Marconi Company was a British telecommunications and engineering company founded by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 which was a pioneer of wireless long distance communication and mass media broadcasting, eventually becoming one of the UK's most successful manufacturing companies.

Its roots were in the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company, which underwent several changes in name after mergers and acquisitions. In 1999, its defence equipment manufacturing division, Marconi Electronic Systems, merged with British Aerospace (BAe) to form BAE Systems. In 2006, financial difficulties led to the collapse of the remaining company, with the bulk of the business acquired by the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson.

BAE Systems plc is a British multinational aerospace, arms and information security company, based in London. It is the largest manufacturer in Britain as of 2017. It is the largest defence contractor in Europe and the seventh largest in the world based on applicable 2021 revenues. Its largest operations are in the United Kingdom and in the United States, where its BAE Systems Inc. subsidiary is one of the six largest suppliers to the US Department of Defense. Its next biggest markets are Saudi Arabia, then Australia; other major markets include Canada, Japan, India, Turkey, Qatar, Oman and Sweden. The company was formed on 30 November 1999 by the £7.7 billion purchase of and merger of Marconi Electronic Systems (MES), the defence electronics and naval shipbuilding subsidiary of the General Electric Company plc (GEC), with British Aerospace, an aircraft, munitions and naval systems manufacturer.

BAE Systems is the successor to various aircraft, shipbuilding, armoured vehicle, armaments and defence electronics companies, including the Marconi Company, the first commercial company devoted to the development and use of radio; A.V. Roe and Company, one of the world's first aircraft companies; de Havilland, manufacturer of the Comet, the world's first commercial jet airliner; Hawker Siddeley, manufacturer of the Harrier, the world's first VTOL attack aircraft; British Aircraft Corporation, co-manufacturer of the Concorde supersonic transport; Supermarine, manufacturer of the Spitfire; Yarrow Shipbuilders, builder of the Royal Navy's first destroyers; Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, builder of the world's first battlecruiser; and Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering, builder of the Royal Navy's first submarines.

Royal Ordnance plc was formed on 2 January 1985 as a public corporation, owning the majority of what until then were the remaining United Kingdom government-owned Royal Ordnance Factories (abbreviated ROFs) which manufactured explosives, ammunition, small arms including the Lee–Enfield rifle, guns and military vehicles such as tanks. It owned some 16 factories; and employed about 19,000 staff.

Royal Ordnance plc was bought by British Aerospace (BAe) in April 1987, which became BAE Systems in 1999. The name Royal Ordnance was retained for almost another twenty years; and the sites retained their former names, either as Royal Ordnance or later RO Defence sites. The Royal Ordnance name was dropped in 2004 and after having traded as Land Systems, the division is now known as Land UK.

The BAE Systems Hawk is a British single-engine, subsonic, jet-powered advanced trainer aircraft. Its aluminium alloy fuselage is of conventional string-frame construction. It was first known as the Hawker Siddeley Hawk, and subsequently produced by its successor companies, British Aerospace and BAE Systems. It has been used in a training capacity and as a low-cost combat aircraft.

Operators of the Hawk include the Royal Air Force (notably the Red Arrows display team) and several foreign military operators. The Hawk was produced at BAE Brough until 2020 in the UK, and continues to be produced under licence in India by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), with over 1000 Hawks sold to 18 operators around the world.